Fewer than 20% of the companies the Yankee Group surveyed say they plan to install the new server software in the next year, while 34% anticipate adopting Windows Server 2003 at some point.

That adoption rate pales in comparison to long-ago runs toward Microsoft software, said Yankee Group senior analyst Laura DiDio, and lags behind the 30% of the installed base that moved to Windows Server 2000 within 12 months of its release three years ago.

...15% of the 1,000 companies surveyed say they would definitely not upgrade to Windows Server 2003, and fully half say they haven't determined if they will.  Of those companies that say they would not roll out Windows Server 2003, more than 40% say they could find no compelling business justification, while 13% say they can't afford to migrate under Microsoft's new Licensing 6.0 program. Also, 12% say they lack the budget, and 9% say they're moving to Linux as their server operating system...

TheRegister.co.uk | Free Software Hacks Hackers
Thanx to Rollando for this one

IT security specialist Backfire Security today announced the availability of a software download as a discrete desk-top client application which wreaks revenge on those hackers and culprits attacking your network or infecting users with worms and/or viruses.

The freeware package - PAYBACK v1.0 - is available from www.backfiresecurity.co.uk in both PC and Mac formats.

PAYBACK v1.0 is a new kind of anti-hacker application called an IRS (Intruder Retaliation System) and is based upon "guerrilla" programming protocols and algorithms originally developed for the Chinese Space Program.

The software has the ability to instantly and dynamically 'trace' the IP source address - no matter how well masked - of the network attack/infection and respond by launching either a Domain Name or Mail Server flood attack in the direction of the attacker.

This overwhelming retaliation is then accelerated by up to 6000% per cent, according to independent tests, as the software initiates a peered "guerrilla" offensive by capturing any available waste Internet data during its transit (dropped packets, redundant addresses, undelivered mails etc) and aggregating them in the attack...

An objection was lodged by freelance journalist Richard Clarke, in his personal capacity, who complained that the advert was untrue. He claimed Microsoft software is littered with vulnerabilities.

The advert depicts a dodo, a woolly mammoth, a sabre tooth tiger and a hacker. The caption claims that not everyone benefits from Microsoft software and that with it, a customer's data couldn't be safer even if it was kept in a safe. It was published in the November issues of ITWeb Brainstorm and Time Magazine.

"Microsoft's software is littered with vulnerabilities," Clarke says in his submission.

Microsoft was asked by the ASA to provide information, substantiated by an independent, credible expert, on the degree of security of its software in accordance with Code of Advertising Practices. Microsoft was also asked to defend the advert against Clarke's claim that the advert was misleading.

Microsoft submitted documentation to substantiate its claims about the security of the software and said the advert was not designed to mislead the consumer, but was merely a tongue in cheek dramatisation that the software would threaten the survival of hackers.

After reviewing both parties' submissions, the ASA ruled that Microsoft's claims about the security of its software were unsubstantiated as it had not been evaluated by an independent entity. The ASA ruling said because the claim was unsubstantiated, it was therefore misleading and ordered the advert to be withdrawn.

Steyn Laubscher, Microsoft account director at Lowe Bull Advertising agency, says Microsoft is in the process of having Windows XP Professional and Windows .Net server 2003 evaluated by independent experts against the common criteria.

"Substantial information was submitted from our US office, backing up the claims. Our survey data are still in the process of being evaluated by independent experts and we informed the ASA of that. However, the ASA still ordered the ad withdrawn."

Laubscher says despite the decision, Microsoft fully maintains that its software is able to fulfil the task of keeping hackers and viruses out, making the customers' data safer than if kept in a safe.

Clarke described Microsoft's claim as "laughable".

The advert was to be run this year in a number of broad-reaching business publications, including Business Day, the Financial Mail and Business.

Reuters.com | 75% of Large Companies Don't Trust Microsoft

Three-fourths of computer software security experts at major companies surveyed by Forrester Research do not think Microsoft’s products are secure, the technology research company said Monday.

While 77 percent of respondents in the information technology field said security was a top concern when using Windows, 89 percent still use the software for sensitive applications, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Forrester said in a report titled "Can Microsoft Be Secure?"

The survey polled 35 software security experts at companies with at least $1 billion in revenue.

...Koetzle noted that while Microsoft's patches for the last nine high-profile Windows security holes predated such attacks by an average of 305 days, too few customers applied the fixes because "administrators lacked both the confidence that a patch won't bring down a production system and the tools and time to validate Microsoft's avalanche of patches."...

Osborne, a British immigrant and long-time resident of Berkeley, California, died in his sleep in Kodiakanal, a village in southern India last Tuesday, his sister, Katya Douglas, told Reuters on Monday.  His death ended a decade-long battle with an organic brain disorder that caused him to suffer an endless series of mini-strokes.

The popularity of the 23-pound luggable computer he introduced in 1981 made his start-up, Osborne Computer Corp., the fastest-growing company up to that time, thanks in part to his willingness to cut the cost of computers nearly in half compared with rivals such as first-to-market Apple Computer.

But the rigors of "hypergrowth" -- a term coined to describe his company's rise -- ended in an even quicker plunge into bankruptcy two years later, making Osborne's legacy a textbook study of the perils of undisciplined growth.  A later generation of dot-com entrepreneurs would come to repeat his mistakes on an even more spectacular scale.

Friends and former colleagues said they remembered Osborne as a man brimming with ideas, an engineer turned early computer publisher, then pioneering computer executive, for whom concepts ruled and business was secondary.

"My appreciation of him was that he was too much of an entrepreneur and not enough of a jack-of-all-trades," recalled Lee Felsenstein, another co-founder of Osborne Computer.

"He had the perfect personality to become a dot-com billionaire," but arrived too early, said John C. Dvorak, a columnist for PC Magazine. Dvorak helped Osborne write the first Silicon Valley CEO confessional following Osborne Computer's collapse, inspiring a mini-genre since then.

...In 1981, the company's first year, Osborne sold $5.8 million worth of the Osborne-1 computer. By the end of 1982, he had sold $68.8 million, or as many as 10,000 units a month.

Then his classic business misstep occurred. Osborne boasted in early 1983 of an improved second generation of his product -- months before it was ready to ship. Sales of older models of his portable sewing-machine-sized computers plummeted.

The inventory build-up that resulted led Osborne Computer to collapse in September 1983.

"His enthusiasm for the next big thing meant Adam couldn't keep a secret," recalled Felsenstein, who lives in Palo Alto, California, where he continues to work as a computer hardware designer and also working on a low-cost wireless computer system for villagers in Laos.

Compaq Computer Corp., now a part of Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HWP - news) picked up where Osborne left off when Compaq introduced its first product -- a portable computer -- in 1983.

Undaunted by his company's failure, Osborne published a memoir of his experience in 1984 entitled "Hypergrowth." He then jumped into a new venture he called Paperback Software -- based on the idea that software could be sold like mass-market paperbacks.

That venture ran aground after Paperback was sued by rival Lotus Development Corp. in a high-profile case that alleged Paperback's spreadsheet program too closely resembled Lotus' own 1-2-3 program. Osborne and Paperback parted ways in 1990.

Osborne's health began to decline in 1992, leading him to move to India to live out the rest of his life with his sister, Katya.

He was buried on Tuesday in a local cemetery near his sister's home, in Kodiakanal, an isolated village whose closest major city is Chanai. Osborne married and divorced twice. Survivors include his first wife, Cynthia Geddes, and their three children, Marc, Paul and Alexandra Osborne, and his second wife, Barbara Burdick.